70th Academy Awards - Special Events

Special Events

• Upon his winning of Best Actor, Jack Nicholson thanked to his longtime friend which also nominated. He said "...And i'm honored to be on any list with you, Bobby, Dusty, and you and your father, Mr. Damon, and my old bike pal, Fonda."

• As a celebration of 70 years of Oscar, the Academy showed clips of all the films that won Best Picture in the past 70 years. The Academy also invited 70 Oscar winning actors and the camera went face to face announcing the actor or actress and the film they won the Oscar for and the year as well.

• Mike Myers introduced a montage of film clips featuring animal actors. The final clip of the montage was a growling shot of Bart the Bear (a large kodiak bear) from the film The Edge. A curtain then rose to reveal Bart on stage, wearing a bow tie and holding a wooden "envelope", which Myers was to retrieve from the bear before presenting the next award. Returning to the microphone, Myers quipped "I just soiled myself."

• Fay Wray made a special guest appearance. Billy Crystal introduced a short clip of her work in King Kong and then moved off the stage. When the lights came back up, he was standing next to Wray in the audience and described her as "the beauty who charmed the beast" and the "legendary Fay Wray". A surprised Wray rose from her seat to instantaneous rapturous applause, which included reaction shots of Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Red Buttons and Martin Landau. Interestingly, she happened to be sitting immediately in front of James Cameron and he can be seen in most of the shots of her. It was her last ever appearance at the Academy Awards show.

• Aaliyah performed "Journey to the Past" from the motion picture Anastasia. At 19 years old, she became the youngest female recording artist to perform at the Oscars.

• Director James Cameron, after winning the Academy Award for Best Picture for Titanic, asked for a moment of silence from the audience to honor the 1,517 people who died in the sinking.